Chapter 7. The Fight for the Forest
The arrival of liberation theology, the union movement, and empates in Acre are documented in Conflitos Pela Terra no Acre (Land Conflicts in Acre), a 1987 master’s thesis by Élio Garcia Duarte, at the University of Campinas. Information on the tenure of Governor Dantas came from this thesis and from Branford and Glock (see Chapter 6). Dozens of interviews with rubber tappers were required to piece together the history of the empate. More background is available in Fight for the Forest: Chico Mendes in His Own Words (London: Latin America Bureau, 1989). Most of the book is an extensive interview Mendes gave one month before he was murdered. Helpful annotation is provided by Tony Gross, who now works for CEDI, the Ecumenical Center for Documentation and Information.
Chapter 8. The Wild West
Interviews with Acre ranchers such as João Branco and Orozinho Villas-Boas gave a clear idea of the cattleman’s view of this part of Amazonia. As Branco put it, “In the year 2000, Acre will be another Paraná—lots of soy, lots of cattle. The land here is excellent. There’s an expression: ‘A beautiful woman never misses the wedding.’ The fifty percent that can be knocked down, you can be sure it will be knocked down—by me, the ones after me, and after and after.” Conflitos Pela Terra no Acre (see previous chapter) documents the arrival of organized violence in Acre.
Details of the killing of Wilson Pinheiro were derived from police records, including many interviews with witnesses, and the medical examiners’ report. Other information came from interviews with João Antonio Bronzeado and João Maia, as well as interviews with Pinheiro’s daughter Iamar. (Maia, incidentally, went on to be elected to Brazil’s Congress.) Information about the Alves family’s early days was provided by Genesio Felipe de Natividade, a lawyer who looked into their background while working for the rubber tappers.
Chapter 9. Joining Forces
Mary Allegretti and Tony Gross provided detailed accounts of the early years of the movement. Silvio Martinello, editor of Gazeta do Acre, kindly let me peruse the paper’s extensive morgue. An interview with the sociologist Regina Bruno, at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, helped clarify the history and strategy of the UDR. Also useful were articles by Bruno and José Gomes da Silva in the March 1989 issue of Tempo e Presença, the magazine of CEDI, the Ecumenical Center for Documentation and Information.
Lively accounts of the winning of the American West are provided in Land Grab: The Truth about “The Winning of the West” (New York: Dial Press, 1972), by John Upton Terrell, and Gun Law: A Study of Violence in the Wild West (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1977), by Joseph G. Rosa and Robin May.
Chapter 10. The Greening of Chico Mendes
For an excellent review of the history of the environmentalists’ campaign against the multilateral banks, refer to “Environmental Reform and the Multilateral Banks,” World Policy journal, Spring 1988, by Pat Aufderheide and Bruce Rich. David Price’s Before the Bulldozer: The Nambiquara Indians and the World Bank (Cabin John, Md.: Seven Locks Press, 1989) gives an insider’s perspective on the way the World Bank ignored consultants’ warnings on the Polonoroeste project.
The descriptions of events at the 1985 meeting of rubber tappers came from extensive interviews with participants and the videotape of the meeting taken by Pró Memória. Also helpful was Fight for the Forest: Chico Mendes in His Own Words (see Chapter 7). Stephan Schwartzman’s report on the meeting, written with support from the World Wildlife Fund and the Threshold Foundation, was an excellent source.
The extractive reserve was only a vague concept after the 1985 meeting. Several years of legal, economic, and sociological analysis were required before it was refined and given a basis in Brazilian law. There remain many questions about the long-term prospects for these forest communities. Several excellent papers explain the promise of this innovative land-use plan: Mary Allegretti and Stephan Schwartzman, “Extractive Production in the Amazon and the Rubber Tappers’ Movement” (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Defense Fund, 1987); Philip M. Fearnside, “Extractive Reserves in Brazilian Amazonia: An Opportunity to Maintain Tropical Rain Forest Under Sustainable Use” (Manaus: National Institute of Amazon Research, October 1988). An important, more skeptical view is presented in “Land-use Strategies for Successful Extractive Economies,” presented by Anthony B. Anderson at a National Wildlife Federation symposium, “Extractive Economies in Tropical Forests: A Course of Action” (November 30, 1989).
Chapter 11. An Innocent Abroad
The rising violence and the increased effectiveness of empates are described in Conflitos Pela Terra no Acre and Fight for the Forest: Chico Mendes in His Own Words (see Chapter 7). The Amnesty International report “Brazil: Authorized Violence in Rural Areas” (September 1988) provides an excellent discussion of the surge in killings in rural Brazil after 1985.
Chico Mendes’s description of the alliance with the Indians was filmed by Miranda Smith, producer and director of Chico Mendes: Voice of the Amazon (a coproduction of Miranda Smith Productions and the Better World Society, 1989).
Some descriptions of Mendes’s last election campaign were drawn from Adrian Cowell’s documentary “Murder in the Amazon” (a coproduction for Frontline of Central Independent Television, the Universidade Católico de Goiás, and WGBH-Boston, 1989).
The relative value of ranching versus the extraction of forest products was estimated by Mary Allegretti and Stephan Schwartzman in “Extractive Reserves: A Sustainable Development Alternative for Amazonia” (Washington, D.C.: World Wildlife Fund, 1987). The income of tappers compared to that of urban poor in the Amazon was calculated by Schwartzman in “Extractive Reserves: The Rubber Tappers’ Strategy for Sustainable Use of the Amazon Rain Forest,” to be published in Fragile Lands in Latin America: The Search for Sustainable Uses (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1989).
Chapter 12. Into the Fire
The history of the use of satellites to monitor deforestation is laid out in several volumes and articles. Among the most useful are: Roberto Pereira da Cunha, “Deforestation Estimates Through Remote Sensing: The State of the Art in the Legal Amazonia” (São José dos Campos: Brazilian Institute for Space Research, 1989); Tropical Rain Forests and the Atmosphere (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1986), edited by Ghillean T. Prance; and Jean-Paul Malingreau and Compton J. Tucker, “Large-scale Deforestation in the Southeastern Amazon Basin of Brazil,” Ambio, vol. 17, no. 1, 1988. Alberto Setzer’s innovative use of weather satellites to spot fires and his dramatic images of the Amazon on fire were first published in “Relatório de Atividades do Projeto IBDF-INPE” (São José dos Campos: Brazilian Institute for Space Research, 1988) by Setzer et al. Interviews with Tucker and Setzer filled in details.
William Denevan’s paper “Development and the Imminent Demise of the Amazon Rain Forest” appeared in 1972 in The Professional Geographer, 25 (2):130–135. Goodland and Irwin’s book is Amazon Jungle: Green Hell to Red Desert? (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1975).
The description of the confrontation over Seringal Cachoeira grew out of interviews with people on both sides, ranging from Darly Alves da Silva to the rubber tapper who organized the first empate there, Manduca Custódio da Silva. Some information was gleaned from the local papers, O Rio Branco and Gazeta do Acre.
Accounts of the Alves family’s violent past came from court records, police interviews with witnesses such as Genézio Barbosa da Silva, and lawyers for the rubber tappers.
The closing account of Mendes’s speeches on seringais around Xapuri was drawn from interviews with tappers and from scenes in Adrian Cowell’s documentary “Murder in the Amazon” (see Chapter 11).
Chapter 13. The Dying Season
George “Pinky” Nelson generously granted an interview in which he described the Amazon from above. An excellent review of the science and politics of the greenhouse effect—and the media frenzy that began in 1988 —is given in Stephen H. Schneider, Global Warming: Are We Entering the Greenhouse Century?(San Francisco: Sierra Club Books,
1989). One newspaper article that was influential in amplifying the connection between the Amazon and the atmosphere appeared on page 1 of the New York Times on August 12, 1988: “Vast Amazon Fires, Man-made, Linked to Global Warming,” by Marlise Simons.
João Branco’s statement about the ranchers’ effort to get Mendes out of the headlines was filmed by Miranda Smith (see Chapter 12).
The battle between Mendes and Mauro Spósito is contained in the local newspapers, where it can be seen to start on December 2 and finish the day after Mendes was killed. Spósito added some details as he sat in September 1989 in an office in São Paulo, busy at his new position in charge of passport control. The only evidence that this was not a purely bureaucratic job was the enormous chrome-plated revolver jutting from his secretary’s belt. Despite the boring work, Spósito was thrilled to be out of the Amazon and back in the south, where he had been raised. “Things became difficult when Chico accused me in the newspapers, saying I was favoring Darly,” he said. “This charge that there was a conspiracy was all politics. Even though I had interrogated Chico in the past, we had a very good relationship. The reason Chico and the bishop came to me with the warrant in the first place is that the Federal Police have a lot of respect. We don’t fight with accusations, we deal with documents.”
Mendes’s last hours were reconstructed in a series of interviews with many of the people whom he saw on December 22—including Gomercindo Rodrigues, his bodyguards, and his friend Dona Maria, who concluded her comments by saying, “Ave Maria, I miss him a lot. He didn’t deserve what they did to him. I don’t know why it’s like that: Bad people live long lives, and good people always die young.”
BRAZIL and SOUTH AMERICA
About half the continent of South America is Brazilian territory, and more than half of Brazil is in the Amazon basin. Most rubber tappers, including Chico Mendes, trace their ancestry to the Northeast, particularly the state of Ceará. Acre is drained by two major river systems, the Juruá and the Purus.
A reconstruction of the murder scene by Brazil’s Federal Police shows the trail of bloodstains leading from Chico Mendes’s back door into the bedroom. The gunman crouched beside the palm tree in the fenced yard, then escaped through a gate in the fence.
A Resource Guide
Many nonprofit organizations are working to sustain the Amazon rain forest ecosystem and its human inhabitants, including:
Conservation International
1919 M Street, NW Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036
www.conservation.org
Works to conserve Earth’s biological diversity and to demonstrate that humans are able to live harmoniously with nature. Focuses on “hot spots,” where threats to ecosystems are most severe.
Coordinating Body for Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin COICA
Calle Luis Beethoven No. 47—65 y Capitán Rafael Ramos Quito, Ecuador
www.coica.org
A network for more than 400 indigenous peoples in Amazonia. Founded in Lima, Peru, in 1982 for native people to fight together to defend their rights and sustain their cultures.
Environmental Defense
257 Park Ave. South
New York, NY 10010
www.environmentaldefense.org
Presses for changes in lending practices by multilateral banks that help make forest preservation part of economic planning. Works with indigenous and rural communities and the government in Brazil to foster sustainable use of the landscape.
Human Rights Watch
350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor
New York, NY 10118-3299
www.hrw.org
Has long had an active campaign in Latin America to investigate violations of human rights and challenge governments or other institutions to respect international human rights standards.
National Council of Rubber Tappers
www.cnsnet.org.br
The union, founded by Chico Mendes, that works to sustain the rights and livelihoods of the communities making a living from the living rain forest.
New York Botanical Garden
Institute for Economic Botany
Bronx, NY 10458
www.nybg.org
Sends botanists around the world to study plant species that are a potential source of medicines, foods, or other valuable products and creates partnerships with researchers and local communities in developing countries.
Rainforest Alliance
665 Broadway, Suite 500
New York, NY 10012
www.rainforestalliance.org
Protects rain forest ecosystems and the people and wildlife within them by helping companies adopt business practices that sustain biodiversity. Products generated this way have ranged from bananas and coffee to guitars.
World Wildlife Fund
1250 24th St., NW
Washington, DC 20037
www.wwfus.org
The largest privately supported international conservation organization in the world, has conducted pioneering research on Amazon ecology. Works with Indians and other rain forest communities to improve the ecology and economics of rubber and Brazil nut harvesting.
Acknowledgements
THE BURNING SEASON was written with the aid of dozens of people—ranging from environmentalists in Washington to rubber tappers along the Juruá River. I am grateful to all of them.
Most of all, I thank the rubber tappers and Indians who are risking their lives defending the Amazon. When I presented my proposal to the leadership of the National Council of Rubber Tappers, they were happy to give me their full cooperation. Especially helpful were Júlio Barbosa de Aquino, Osmarino Rodrigues, Raimundo de Barros, Antonio Macedo, and Gomercindo Rodrigues. Chico Mendes’s brothers, Zuza and Assis, contributed important insights, as did Iamar Pinheiro, the daughter of Wilson Pinheiro.
Without the linguistic skills, boundless energy, and quick mind of Luiz Fernando Allegretti, who accompanied me in the Amazon, there would be no book at all.
I am grateful to Mary Helena Allegretti, president of the Institute for Amazonian Studies, for many interviews and access to the institute’s files. Sister Michael Mary Nolan, the lawyer conducting a parallel investigation of the Mendes murder—and of dozens of similar crimes around Brazil —provided crucial access to a mountain of court and police records. Adrian Cowell, Mauro Almeida, Tony Gross, João Maia, and Jorge Terena were among many who described the history of the rubber tapper and Indian movements. Douglas Daly, of the New York Botanical Garden, guided me through the confounding maze of tropical biology. I crossed paths with Brazil’s outgoing environmental chief, Fernando Mesquita, and the man who later became Brazil’s new secretary of the environment, José Lutzenberger—thanks go to both for their time (and good luck to Secretary Lutzenberger).
Donald D. Pearson provided gracious hospitality during my stay in Brazil. Silvio Martinello, Elson Martins, and Anivaldo Padilha helped round up photographs. In the United States, Veronica Gardiner gamely translated one hundred and twenty hours of tapes. Stephan Schwartzman of the Environmental Defense Fund, Barbara Bramble of the National Wildlife Federation, Daniel Katz of the Rainforest Alliance, and Jason Clay of Cultural Survival gave generously of their time. Linda Rabben and the Brazil Network put me in touch with many helpful people.
My agent, Bob Tabian of ICM, helped conceive the idea for this book. John Sterling, the editor-in-chief of Houghton Mifflin, had the confidence to set me loose in the Amazon; once I returned, his well-placed pencil marks transformed a manuscript into a book. Irene Williams, Audrey Goodman, Luise Erdmann, Rebecca Saikia-Wilson, and the rest of the Houghton Mifflin strike force made the impossible possible.
I thank my parents for tolerating my wandering ways. The constant support of my wife, Linda, prevented me from going around the bend.
My dog, Woody, kept me human.
Finally, there would be no book—and possibly no author—without the able stitchery of Dr. Thomas Gouge, who removed my inflamed appendix twenty-fou
r hours after I returned from Brazil.
A.R.
April 1990
1 A.R. August, 2004
The Burning Season Page 36